Arctic Temperatures and Ice – Why it is Natural Variability

The temperatures in the arctic have indeed risen in recent years and ice has declined, bottoming out in 2007 but it is not unprecedented nor unexpected. The arctic temperatures and arctic ice extent varies in a very predictable 60-70 year cycle that relates to ocean cycles which are likely driven by solar changes.

In 2007, NASA scientists reported that after years of research, their team had assembled data showing that normal, decade-long changes in Arctic Ocean currents driven by a circulation known as the Arctic Oscillation was largely responsible for the major Arctic climate shifts observed over the past several years. These periodic reversals in the ocean currents move warmer and cooler water around to new places, greatly affecting the climate. The AO was at a record low level last winter explaining the record cold and snow in middle latitudes. A strongly negative AO pushes the coldest air well south while temperatures in the polar regions are warmer than normal under blocking high pressure. See post here.

We agree. And indeed both oceans play a role. In the record-setting (since satellite monitoring began in 1979) summer melt season of 2007, NSIDC noted the importance of both oceans in the arctic ice.

“One prominent researcher, Igor Polyakov at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, points out that pulses of unusually warm water have been entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic, which several years later are seen in the ocean north of Siberia. These pulses of water are helping to heat the upper Arctic Ocean, contributing to summer ice melt and helping to reduce winter ice growth.

Another scientist, Koji Shimada of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, reports evidence of changes in ocean circulation in the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean. Through a complex interaction with declining sea ice, warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait in summer is being shunted from the Alaskan coast into the Arctic Ocean, where it fosters further ice loss. Many questions still remain to be answered, but these changes in ocean circulation may be important keys for understanding the observed loss of Arctic sea ice.”

The Pacific warm mode favors more El Ninos and warmer water in the far northern Pacific including the Bering Straits. The PDO flipped into its warm mode in 1978 and the arctic temperatures began to warm and ice began to melt.

Frances et al. (GRL 2007) showed how the warming in the arctic and the melting ice was related to warm water (+3C) in the Barents Sea moving slowly into the Siberian arctic and melting the ice. She also noted the positive feedback of changed “albedo” due to open water then further enhances the warming.

The International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks showed how arctic temperatures have cycled with intrusions of Atlantic water – cold and warm.

See how quickly the arctic ice reacts to warming of the Atlantic sea surface temperatures in 1995 (source Cryosphere Today). This marked a second leg down. We have seen large swings after the big dip in 2007 following a peak in Atlantic warmth in 2004-2005.

Although the PDO and AMO are measured differently, both reflect a tri-pole of ocean temperatures. Both have warm north and tropics and cool relative to normal in between in the positive phase and cold north and tropics and warm in between in the negative phase. By normalizing the two data sets and then adding the two, you get a measure of net warmth or cooling potential for both global and arctic temperatures. See how well the sum tracks with the arctic temperatures. Though we don’t have measurements of ice extent, there are many stories and anecdotal evidence that arctic ice was in a major decline from the 1920s to 1940s.

Though the current spike in the Atlantic temperatures and more high latitude blocking may cause another spike of melting in the next few winters as warm water from the AMO pop the last year works its way into the arctic, longer term you can expect arctic temperatures to decline and ice to rebound as the Pacific stays cold and the Atlantic cools and the sun stays in its 213 year Eddy minimum.

That doesn’t preclude some very cold and snowy winters short term. In 2008 glaciologist Bruce Molnia reported a bitterly cold Alaskan summer of 2008 following a La Nina winter with extreme cold and heavy snows resulted in area glaciers to expand, rather than shrink for the FIRST TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY. Summer temperatures, which were some 3 degrees below average, allowed record levels of winter snow to remain much longer, leading to the increase in glacial mass for the first time in at least 250 years.

See PDF here. See Verity Jones recent post on the arctic data here. See more on glaciers and icecaps here.

Received 5 January 2009; accepted 24 May 2010; published 30 October 2010.

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66 thoughts on “Arctic Temperatures and Ice – Why it is Natural Variability”

Thanks for the summary of the PDO/AMO/TSI influence. A couple of things:

1) GCM’s take these cyclical influences into account AND the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s and can factor out these other influences to see the result left by the forcing due to CO2. While the influences of the cycles of the PDO/AMO/TSI are no doubt present, to completely exclude any effect from CO2 is to miss part of the story.

2) Also, the effects of CO2 increases on the PDO/AMO (and of course ENSO) are still being investigated. No one can say exactly how or if CO2 may be affecting the timing, duration, and intensity of these natural ocean cycles, though some GCM’s would indicate that there will be some effect, and much research is being done in this area.

The potential effects of the PDO/AMO/and TSI on the Arctic and global climate in general are what keep me partially sceptical about AGW, but I am also very sceptical about those who would totally try to completely write off the effects from the 40% increase in CO2 we’ve seen over the past few hundred years.

“Dr. Willie Soon has shown how the arctic temperatures match the solar Total Solar Irradiance (Hoyt/Schatten/Willson) well. Correlation is poor with CO2.”

The graphs supporting this position appear to stop at 2000. The relationship of TSI to arctic temperatures does not appear to hold after 2000 as other graphs in the post indicate. There appear to be significant challenges to the work of Dr. Soon. The failure to be forthright and note in the post that the correlation has not held for periods after the study makes this piece appear to be more concerned with advocacy of a particular position than providing information on the current state of the science, which is unfortunate as other material appears to be very interesting.

Why should we expect CO2 or TSI to have exact correlations to arctic temperatures as climate is more complex than either of these two items? [Rhetorical question.] There are many factors that are driving arctic temperature, including sulfate aerosols, black carbon, changes in arctic albedo due to diminished ice extent, changes to the atlantic THC, changes to the PDO and AMO, changes in cloud patterns, changes in water vapor and I am sure there are others. Looking for simplistic correlations to support or deny human impacts on the climate based on any single factor will always be flawed as climate is due to a complex mixing of factors.

The charts showing perceived correlations over relatively short periods need to be backed up with an analysis of what is driving the changes to the PDO and AMO. The conclusion that these cycles have always shown this period would appear unreliable given the purported length of the LIA and MWP.

Help me here . I was under the impression that the AMO was about to turn negative in the near future , like the next couple of years . This post indicates that it will be another fifteen or twenty years before this happens . Which is correct ? ( I think that Joe Bastardi was saying something about this earlier this year .)

There is no doubt in the minds of climate researchers that ocean oscillations have an impact on local climate. The question of whether they have a greater impact on global warming than GHG’s is a topic that is getting research attention. It appears that answer is no:

“The problem of separating variations due to natural and anthropogenic forcing
from those due to unforced internal dynamics during the twentieth century
is addressed using IPCC climate simulations and observations. An unforced
internal component that varies on multidecadal time scales is identified by a
new statistical method that maximizes integral time scale. This component,
called the Internal Multidecadal Pattern (IMP), is stochastic and hence does
not contribute to trends on long time scales, but can contribute significantly
to short-term trends. Observational estimates indicate that the trend in the
spatially averaged “well observed” sea surface temperature (SST) due to the
forced component has an approximately constant value of 0.1K/decade, while
the IMP can contribute about 0.08K/decade for a 30-year trend. The warming
and cooling of the IMP matches that of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
and is of sufficient amplitude to explain the acceleration in warming
1
during 1977-2008 as compared to 1946-1977, in spite of the forced component
increasing at the same rate during these two periods. The amplitude and time
scale of the IMP are such that its contribution to the trend dominates that
of the forced component on time scales less than 16 years, implying that the
lack of warming trend during the past ten years is not statistically significant.
Furthermore, since the IMP varies naturally on multidecadal time scales, it is
potentially predictable on decadal time scales, providing a scientific rationale
for decadal predictions. While the IMP can contribute significantly to trends
for periods of 30 years or less, it cannot account for the 0.8C warming trend
that has been observed in the twentieth century spatially averaged SST.

Great post — its probably worth noting that every country in the world, that has a fishing industry, already understands these cycles and the effects on fish populations by species. Most have studies available online.

Joe: “In 2007, NASA scientists reported that after years of research, their team had assembled data showing that normal, decade-long changes in Arctic Ocean currents driven by a circulation known as the Arctic Oscillation was largely responsible for the major Arctic climate shifts observed over the past several years.”

What did the scientists really say?

“A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming. …

“Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming,” said Morison.”

Joe is not a scientist – he is a former weather forecaster. He is no dummy, but he just knows the climatologists must be wrong. So sure is he that he can read the opposite of what they say about their research. He provides the confirmation bias many here crave.

Is it possible to update on a few of these charts? The PDO + AMO vs. Arctic temperature ends in 1995. The TSI vs. Arctic temperature anomalies end in 2001. On the last chart the Arctic temperature ends around 2000.

If the point of the article by Joe D’Aleo is that not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with CO2 warming, then I agree as this is well established by the science researchers, including scientists supporting the conclusions of the IPCC.

The article does not appear to state a conclusion that human activities have no impact on climate, unless I missed it. I did see the statement that “Correlation is poor with CO2.”, but the article did not expand this observation or include an analysis of how human factors could be influencing natural variability by muting cooling or enhancing warming or an assesment of the potential impact of human factors, some of which cause warming and some of which cause cooling.

Natural variability and climate influences due to human activities are not mutually exclusive.

It is the climate impact that human influences are having in conjunction with other natural forces (including fluctuations in TSI) that can be grouped under the name “natural variability” that would make for a more interesting topic of discussion, and I look forward to such an article by this author.

Maybe we should refer to the TSI / C02 correlation as the TSI + other Solar effects / C02 correlation.
For TSI low amplitude variations, in the Arctic where angles of incidence are already very low, even a gentle push to lower TSI could make a larger difference to melt & freeze rates.
Another La Nina should put a damper on Arctic Ice melts.
What caught my eye was the Annual Mean AMO is already at the 1960 level and still headed down.
Eddy Minimum !!

The claim of correlation of TSI and arctic temperatures and global temperatures is suspect.

“In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions. In the past century, the Sun can explain some of the increase in global temperatures, but a relatively small amount.”

“As supplier of almost all the energy in Earth’s climate, the sun has a strong influence on climate. A comparison of sun and climate over the past 1150 years found temperatures closely match solar activity (Usoskin 2005). However, after 1975, temperatures rose while solar activity showed little to no long-term trend. This led the study to conclude, “…during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”

In fact, a number of independent measurements of solar activity indicate the sun has shown a slight cooling trend since 1960, over the same period that global temperatures have been warming. Over the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been moving in opposite directions. An analysis of solar trends concluded that the sun has actually contributed a slight cooling influence in recent decades (Lockwood 2008).”

“This conclusion is confirmed by many studies finding that while the sun contributed to warming in the early 20th Century, it has had little contribution (most likely negative) in the last few decades:”

Please see the graph of global temperature and TSI at the following link which also has links to peer reviewed research studies metioned above and is the source of the material quoted above:

“The 1880 – 1940 temperature rise can be attributed, in part, to TSI increases. The post 1975 temperature increases,however, can not be attributed to TSI because temperatures were rising while TSI was decreasing. TSI only explains part of the temperature change puzzle. To understand post 1975 temperature change, we need to look at solar activity and other factors. ”

Temperatures in Arctic says it all: as ice age now was based on extrapolation of cooling 1940-1975 period, AGW scare is based solely on the rising part of the AMO curve.

R. Gates
1) no way the Arctic models takePDO/AMO into consideration; model outputs are just copies of CO2 curve, no sign of cyclical wave.
2) Oh my, how can addition of one molecule CO2 to existing three molecules per ten thousands molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, argon and water vapor influence something as PDO or AMO? More, PDO and AMO are things-which-must-not-be-named in orthodox climatology, because if we remove these natural cycles, there is nothing remaining for CO2, except UHI and statistical manipulation. IPCC 2007 says that post-1975 warming is not natural, while dismisses the fact that PDO was defined in 2001 and AMO soon afterwards and both entered their warm phase exactly after 1975.
I repeat, the whole AGW scare is based SOLELY on the 1975-2005 warm part of oceanic oscillations, whatever is driving them.

There you go.
THAT is some of the many ways this Earth keeps its cool.

We have just witnessed a rather amazing 30-50 years here on Earth. The papers on how the sun did have a rather large, multi-eleven-year-cycle with secular tsi increase and the movements in the climate indicators, AMO, PDO, AO, etc. all show us exactly HOW that does occur periodically (across centuries) and how nature handles it. It absolutely amazes me the most that so many so called ‘climate scientists’ have not been right on top of it. Just shows their lack of calibre. But, some real scientists have and my hats off to all of them and those mentioned here are included. Co2 has nothing to do with it, check out the proper scientific peer reviewed papers that show emperically that this is so.

The next phase is most likely a cooling Earth, not an ice age I hope, so watch how this physical Earth mitigates to maintain the warmth as much as possible. I just wish these scientists would look deeply into the actual physics behind the reasons they interact the way they do.

Joe D’Aleo wrote: “The Pacific warm mode favors more El Ninos and warmer water in the far northern Pacific including the Bering Straits. The PDO flipped into its warm mode in 1978 and the arctic temperatures began to warm and ice began to melt.”

Actually, other than the ENSO noise and the dip and rebound between 1971 and 1976, the PDO and the SST anomalies of the Bering Sea show little similarities:
By the method used to calculate it, the trend of the PDO is flat. On the other hand, the Bering Sea SST anomalies have a linear trend of 0.07 deg C/decade since 1900. And the two variables have a very poor correlation coefficient of 0.128.

The post also shows the graph of the PDO and AMO added together, and I write the same comment about that graph every time it’s posted. Here it is again.

Unfortunately, the PDO and AMO are not similar datasets and cannot be added or averaged. The AMO is created by detrending North Atlantic SST anomalies, while the PDO is the product of a principal component analysis North Pacific SST anomalies, north of 20N. Basically, the PDO represents the pattern of the North Pacific SST anomalies that are similar to those created by El Niño and La Niña events. If one were to detrend the SST anomalies of the North Pacific, north of 20N, and compare it to the PDO, the two curves (smoothed with a 121-month filter) appear to be inversely related:

Which GCM’s factor in the PDO/AMO cycles? Not any of the ones that went into the last IPCC report. Because if they did factor those ocean cycles into their analysis, there is no way they could have come out with a 3C per doubling climate sensitivity for CO2.

@Will Crump

Thank you for making the sceptics case for us. There are all sorts of things that go into the causes of climate, not just CO2. Most sceptics wouldn’t deny that CO2 has some effect, the question is how much. Is it so much as to overcome the benefits from that CO2, increased vegetation ergo increased biodiversity being the most obvious. Is it so much that it requires demolishing the economies of the western world?

I agree too with your assertion that we need to find out what actually causes the PDO and AMO cycles to occur. They don’t correlate with any of the most obvious cycles, like the lunar or solar cycle, yet for all of the time we have actual measurements, they correlate pretty closely with the major ups and downs of those measurements.

The best explanation I’ve seen is one from E.M. Smith, which is magma flows in the earth’s core affecting the LOD, but even then you are left with the question as to what causes them. Once we do find the source, I believe we will have the major driver of climate.

R. Gates (11:25 am)
“…GCM’s take these cyclical influences into account AND the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s…”
“…I am also very sceptical about those who would totally try to completely write off the effects from the 40% increase in CO2 we’ve seen over the past few hundred years…”

It’s only since c. 1945 that any significant portion of the increase in CO2 concentration can be attributed to fossil fuel use:

“In fact, a number of independent measurements of solar activity indicate the sun has shown a slight cooling trend since 1960, over the same period that global temperatures have been warming. Over the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been moving in opposite directions. ”

This old canard keeps coming up.

Solar activity peaked in cycle 19 and has indeed trended down since then but only very slightly until cycle 24.

Throughout the period of active solar cycles the solar activity was above the level required to maintain a stable energy content for the system.

All that time the jets and their cloud bands were relatively poleward thus opening the blinds so to speak and letting more solar energy into the oceans so that ocean heat content rose, albedo decreased, cloud quantities declined, El Nino events became stronger.

Now the process is in reverse but only a little so far. Some way to go to get back to the LIA setup.

As everyone knows, what drives temperature is the political make-up of elected officials in the USA. When Democrats have the power, temperature goes up. When Republicans have the power, temperature goes down. Get ready for a devastating blizzard.

Cloud amounts and albedo both increasing since the sun started to become less active and the jets began to move equatorward.

A beginning of the closing of the blinds after 30 years or so when those blinds were wide open. That is what ocean heat content follows and the tropospheric air temperatures then follow as the oceans then deign to release energy to the air in their own good time.

Ocean heat content last declined in the 50s and 60s when the jets were last equatorward. Then ocean heat content rose as the jets moved poleward and now we have a plateau before the next decline.

The ‘missing’ heat is not there in the oceans because it never got into the oceans in the first place and when ocean heat content rose it was because the blinds were open.

If CO2 has a contribution to make then all it does is cause the jets to shift a miniscule fraction of what natural variability causes.

A small solar change scales up to a large energy budget change by shifting the jets and changing global albedo.

The Milankovitch cycles would operate the same way. Less solar radiation coming in results in more equatorward jets and a buildup of cold with snow and ice in mid latitudes.

And all this only makes sense if the mesosphere and stratosphere naturally show net cooling when the sun is more active, contrary to current assumptions but in accordance with actual observations.

To rebut what I say it needs to be shown that the jets can move equatorward when the stratosphere is cooling and the temperature differential between surface and stratosphere increasing. Basic physics says it cannot happen yet that is what AGW theory and standard assumptions require if a more active sun naturally warms the stratosphere.

The behaviour of the jets shows that the sign is wrong for the net solar effect on the temperature of the mesosphere and stratosphere. Even sceptics do not yet have a grip on that issue.

Joe D’Aleo: The AMO is a poor short-term indicator of high latitude North Atlantic SST anomalies (55N-75N). The two curves exhibit similar long-term variability until 1998. But after the 1997/98 El Nino, the high latitude North Atlantic SST anomalies diverge drastically from the AMO. And that’s not addressed or explained in this post:
In the graph, the AMO is detrended North Atlantic SST anomalies for the whole basin, while the high latitude North Atlantic SST anomalies have not been detrended.

Stephen Wilde wrote: “To rebut what I say it needs to be shown that the jets can move equatorward when the stratosphere is cooling and the temperature differential between surface and stratosphere increasing.”

Will Crump says:
November 1, 2010 at 1:02 pm
The claim of correlation of TSI and arctic temperatures and global temperatures is suspect.

Actually Will the global temperatures, especially GISS are suspect. We have clearly invalid UHI adjustments that adjust rural historic records to look like urban records, homogenization of missing temperatures from 1500 km away, the march of the thermometers to lower latitudes and altitudes, and major siting and equipment change issues that impart positive biases. If the global average temperature is estimated only from raw data, and from stations with long records, most of the 1975 to 2000 warming disappears, and we have a cooling trend for more than 10 years now. For the USA raw rural data shows warming of .16 degrees C /century, vs raw urban warming of .79 degrees C per century. An area weighted average of the two gives USA warming of less than 0.2 degrees C per century, and virtually all of the rural/urban divergence is since 1965. See http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Rate_of_Temp_Change_Raw_and_Adjusted_NCDC_Data.pdf

Will Crump says:
November 1, 2010 at 1:02 pm
“The claim of correlation of TSI and arctic temperatures and global temperatures is suspect.”

Just look at the difference in temperature from one winter to another, tiny changes in TSI are not responsible for that. Monthly/weekly changes in the solar wind velocity correlate extremely well to shorter term surface temperature deviations. A quick eyeball at the lack of coronal holes, and low solar wind speeds last winter, precisely during the coldest weeks, talks volumes; http://www.solen.info/solar/coronal_holes.html
Conversely, look for example, how high the velocity was in July/August 2003.
User defined plots can be found here; http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/dx1.html

The red arrows on the Arctic map could be misleading. Inflow from the Pacific through Bering strait is about 1Sv, while the inflow from the Atlantic is much larger at around 9Sv (1 Sverdrup = 10^6 cubic meters /sec).
Arctic temperature is closely correlated to average of the polar magnetic field in the Beaufort gyre area:http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
This may be just a coincidence but unlikely, the AMO also follows closely, while PDO is in different phase. Atlantic and the Arctic are in close symbiosis, while Arctic and Pacific are barely on ‘speaking terms’ as far as the ocean currents are concerned.

R. Gates says: November 1, 2010 at 11:25 am1) GCM’s take these cyclical influences into account AND the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s and can factor out these other influences.

You know it and many other CO2ites know it, that is a pure codswalap, and this shows why:http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-Arc.htm
Man put your money where your mouth is: sell your car buy a horse, throw away your pc get few clay tablets.

Which GCM’s factor in the PDO/AMO cycles? Not any of the ones that went into the last IPCC report. Because if they did factor those ocean cycles into their analysis, there is no way they could have come out with a 3C per doubling climate sensitivity for CO2.

This I know the answer. Nothing.

It will not solve the search for solutions enthalpy.

The solution of the problem is entropic.

For example, the same amount of water vapor. I can have infinite (or finite) clouds.

The claim of correlation of TSI and arctic temperatures and global temperatures is suspect.

Actually Will the global temperatures, especially GISS are suspect. We have clearly invalid UHI adjustments that adjust rural historic records to look like urban records, homogenization of missing temperatures from 1500 km away, the march of the thermometers to lower latitudes and altitudes, and major siting and equipment change issues that impart positive biases. If the global average temperature is estimated only from raw data, and from stations with long records, most of the 1975 to 2000 warming disappears, and we have a cooling trend for more than 10 years now. For the USA raw rural data shows warming of .16 degrees C /century, vs raw urban warming of .79 degrees C per century. An area weighted average of the two gives USA warming of less than 0.2 degrees C per century, and virtually all of the rural/urban divergence is since 1965. See http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Rate_of_Temp_Change_Raw_and_Adjusted_NCDC_Data.pdf

Murray, I so agree with your comment. It’s the basis of all of my comments over the last few months. That 0.2 degrees C keeps popping up in a number of data plots, some of Dr. Spencer’s work, but I still can’t understand why the oceans show a bit more than that and they of course trump the air temperatures. Hate to question ARGO but they are the next stop to question. But, your right, it’s but a very small fraction of one degree over the 20th century, no doubt about it and GISS has screwed it up! Their UHI adjustments are all wrong and UHI has nearly zero effect on the global temperature, just on the local thermometers, usually at the airports. Many scientists have already proved that the amount of heat energy coming from mankind within cities is so small it can be ignored globally but not locally, that’s the catch.

I find it odd that in all the reporting about cycles the obvious is ignored. Namely, oceans are three dimensional, water flows, and Earth rotates. Rotation would seem to influence any flows on Earth, air or water. Maybe if one wants to know about the currents in the Atlantic Ocean then studying how those currents respond to the size, shape, latitude, Coriolis force, density, temperature, and irregularities of the ocean floor (mid-Atlantic Ridge being one) should be considered. Physical processes take time. For example the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave takes about 8 or 9 years to make a full circle with its large irregular alternating pools of warm and cool water.http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?act=view_file&file_id=EC97p22.pdf

Explanations of these things called ocean cycles, such as the PDO or AMO, require understanding the physical processes at work in each of the oceans and any interconnectedness. What is the North Pacific Ocean doing as it goes from a warm PDO to a cool PDO? What is flowing? Where? Amounts? Forces? Bathymetric influences? Physical description, please?

Can I make a judgment as to CO2’s influence, or Jupiter’s, or cosmic rays without that physical description?

It is this Pacific current that first exposed the climate fraud and its dishonest reporting by the press to me in 2005. For 5 minutes a BBC news reporter described how the Pacific current melted the ice in the arctic. The melting was accelerated by the low albedo of the water which absorbs 15 times the solar energy of the reflective ice. ( An unstable positive feedback system).

Alas, I thought, someone who has the intelligence to do more than repeat the CO2 mantra.

Does this reporter conclude that we should be looking at more than CO2? My jaw dropped as she concluded that this is the reason we should support efforts to outlaw CO2.

After examining the Cambridge University Report of Nov 2004 on which I believe the news report was based and another US arctic report I realized that the reports cited by the warmists didn’t even support the warmists claims if you read beyond the biased executive summaries.

The effect of the pacific currents and the albedo changes on Arctic ice melts needs to be told as it is the arctic ice and the poor polar bears that is getting the publicity and the legal backing to effect change.

Someone also ought to take Cambridge University to task for their biased report.

Oceans are warming across the globe. In fact, globally oceans are accumulating energy at a rate of 4 x 10*21 Joules per year – equivalent to 127,000 nuclear plants (which have an average output of 1 gigawatt) pouring their energy directly into the world’s oceans. This tells us the planet is in energy imbalance – more energy is coming in than radiating back out to space.

The notion that the ocean is causing global warming is ruled out by the observation that the ocean is warming (Levitus 2005). Internal climate changes such as El Nino and thermohaline variability stem from transfers of heat such as from the ocean to the atmosphere. If the ocean was feeding atmospheric warming, the oceans would be cooling.

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There are measurements of different ocean area showing warming overall reinforcing AGW theory.

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Other studies
In fact, ocean observations confirm both global warming and its cause. Barnett 2007 compares observations of ocean temperatures to results from the Parallel Climate Model (PCM) and finds “model-produced signals are indistinguishable from the observations”. This suggests “the observed ocean heat-content changes are consistent with those expected from anthropogenic forcing, which broadens the basis for claims that an anthropogenic signal has been detected in the global climate system.”

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In response to raw vs adjusted temperature data. Here is a lengthy explanation from Nasa of what they are doing.

How are you defining the “skeptics case” and how does it differ from a denialist case?

If you are defining the skeptics case as being that the science is so uncertain that no mitigation efforts should be undertaken, then I submit that this is the denialist case and not the skeptics case.

Many of the posts on this blog strike me as the posting of denialists posing as skeptics, rather than true skeptics. Based on the information I have gathered on Joe D’Aleo, CCM, he appears to be pushing a political and idealogical agenda in the guise of a skeptic rather than being a person who is acting as a skeptic in the interests of advancing the understanding of climate science.

I am certainly not interested in ” demolishing the economies of the western world” based on the lifestyle that I have grown accustomed to. I am troubled that you see the issue of human influences on climate in such extreme terms. There are less extreme measures that could be taken to mitigate or diminish negative aspects of human influences on climate and the environment. It is not practical to eliminate all negative aspects of human influences. The selection of mitigation measures will involve a balancing of benefits derived and costs avoided with the costs incurred to carry out the mitigation. Taking an approach of doing nothing and passing the cost on to future generations is not a responsible approach..

“Bob Tisdale says:
November 1, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Stephen Wilde wrote: “To rebut what I say it needs to be shown that the jets can move equatorward when the stratosphere is cooling and the temperature differential between surface and stratosphere increasing.”

Actually I have discharged that burden by pointing out that it is physically impossible for the jets to move poleward when the stratosphere is warming or equatorward when the stratosphere is warming.

Furthermore all available observations so far show that to be true.

There are plenty of examples of so called sudden stratospheric warmings when the jets plunge equatorward in response. The stratosphere cooled as the jets went poleward in the late 20th century and are now more equatorward with a slightly warmer stratosphere.

“the observed ocean heat-content changes are consistent with those expected from anthropogenic forcing, which broadens the basis for claims that an anthropogenic signal has been detected in the global climate system”
Oh really?

Stephen Wilde and Bob Tisdale
Another view: North hemisphere’s jet-streams are controlled by the polar jet-stream.
Polar jet stream is moved by the heat released (rise of warm air) from the North Atlantic drift current around 60 degrees north, mainly in the area of Labrador Sea.
the L. Sea temperature anomaly is changing on daily basis since there is no fixed pattern of currents strength in the area. Labrador Sea currents govern the strength of the subpolar gyre’s circulation, which is the engine of the heat transport across the North Atlantic Ocean.
How far north or south polar jet stream is diverted by these events it depends on the strength of the cold East Greenland current relative to the warm North Atlantic current, which together form subpolar gyre.

Stephen Wilde replied, “Actually I have discharged that burden by pointing out that it is physically impossible for the jets to move poleward when the stratosphere is warming or equatorward when the stratosphere is warming.”

I must have missed that. Please show the calculations and data that prove your conjecture.

paulhan says: November 2, 2010 at 1:55 amAll I’m asking is that we quantify properly what role CO2 plays, and whether it is net positive or negative.

Paul Han you make a very important point, worth considering in more detail:
Let’s look at CO2 release and the Arctic temperature during the last 100 or so years:http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-Arc.htm
Ignore the green line and concentrate on the blue (CO2) and red (Arctic temp).
1900 – 1950 CO2 rises slowly (low rate of rise) the temperature shoots up.
1950 -1980 CO2 suddenly takes off at the fastest rate ever, temperatures drop.
1980 -2000 CO2 rate slows down temperatures go up again.
Thus, CO2 is really crucial element in the Arctic temperature change, not the absolute level of CO2 but it is its rate of change that drives the temperature change, or put it in numerical terms: d(CO2)/dt + dT/dt = const
Well that appears to be a new ‘incontinent truth’.
Hence, to prevent the rapid melting of the Arctic ice, we need to pump CO2 into atmosphere at an increased rate, i.e. doubling of CO2 emissions every 20 years, as it was case from 1950-80, when temperatures actually droped.
What do you (and R. Gates) say?

“Bob Tisdale says:
November 2, 2010 at 3:02 am
Stephen Wilde replied, “Actually I have discharged that burden by pointing out that it is physically impossible for the jets to move poleward when the stratosphere is warming or equatorward when the stratosphere is warming.”

I must have missed that. Please show the calculations and data that prove your conjecture.”

That should read “equatorward when the stratosphere is cooling”. Also all other things being equal i.e. no concurrent change of temperature of the troposphere but I assumed that went without saying because I have always held that there are two processes at work simultaneously.

You might as well ask me to ‘prove’ that increasing the downward slope of a river bed speeds up the rate of flow rather than slowing it down. It is pretty much self evident from day to day observation and knowledge of basic physics.

In similar manner a cooling of the upper atmosphere ‘must’ increase the upward energy flux. That then raises the height of the tropopause and the jets move poleward. Exactly as per real world observations throughout the late 20th century warming period. Thus self evident from observations and basic physics.

Anyway, show me a time on multidecadal timescales that the stratosphere warmed and the jets moved poleward. All available data, though somewhat limited, shows that a cooler stratosphere draws the jets poleward and a warmer stratosphere sends them equatorward.

I accept the validity of those examples but my hypothesis subsumes them into the net global effects. It isn’t all about PDO and AMO but the net global oceanic contribution to energy transfer to the air.

I have often said that the top down solar effect is only half the story. The other half is the bottom up oceanic effect of which those phenomena form a part.

vukcevic says:
November 2, 2010 at 3:23 am
paulhan says: November 2, 2010 at 1:55 am
All I’m asking is that we quantify properly what role CO2 plays, and whether it is net positive or negative.

Paul Han you make a very important point, worth considering in more detail:
Let’s look at CO2 release and the Arctic temperature during the last 100 or so years:http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-Arc.htm
Ignore the green line and concentrate on the blue (CO2) and red (Arctic temp).
1900 – 1950 CO2 rises slowly (low rate of rise) the temperature shoots up.
1950 -1980 CO2 suddenly takes off at the fastest rate ever, temperatures drop.
1980 -2000 CO2 rate slows down temperatures go up again.
Thus, CO2 is really crucial element in the Arctic temperature change, not the absolute level of CO2 but it is its rate of change that drives the temperature change, or put it in numerical terms:
d(CO2)/dt + dT/dt = const
Well that appears to be a new ‘incontinent truth’.
Hence, to prevent the rapid melting of the Arctic ice, we need to pump CO2 into atmosphere at an increased rate, i.e. doubling of CO2 emissions every 20 years, as it was case from 1950-80, when temperatures actually droped.
What do you (and R. Gates) say?
_____

At least there is still a bit of humor floating around here.

If only everything in the universe were strictly linear and that chaos and systems that constantly teeter on the edge of chaos did not exist…then the nice little one-for-one relationships with one domino toppling the next would be easy to spot. Begin to pile one grain of sand on a pile and the pile looks stable for a periods of time, even though you continue to put one grain of sand on it. Then, all of a sudden, you get a collapse of the pile…unpredictable but quite deterministic.

R. Gates says: November 2, 2010 at 6:37 amBegin to pile one grain of sand on a pile and the pile looks stable for a periods of time, even though you continue to put one grain of sand on it. Then, all of a sudden, you get a collapse of the pile…unpredictable but quite deterministic.
A quote worth remembering, it should go on the AGW gravestone.
Agree absolutely 100%. No one but an AGW expert could describe the rise and fall of AGW theory so accurately.
I say : Sell your car buy a horse, throw away your pc get few clay tablets.

Ref – Mike says:
November 1, 2010 at 12:02 pm
“Joe is not a scientist – he is a former weather forecaster. He is no dummy, but he just knows the climatologists must be wrong. So sure is he that he can read the opposite of what they say about their research. He provides the confirmation bias many here crave.”
_________________________

I’ll take “Joe D’Aleo, CCM” any day of the week (and twice on Sunday) over the AGW Climatologist Gang of Gore that’s out to waylay and rob the public with their Sky is Falling Psyentific Crap and their UN Sponsored End Of the Century Solutions.

Mike: I think you miss the point about the Psyence Of Climatology being a BIGGER hazard to humanity than an honest Weatherman giving us his opinion and what he thinks is going on. We don’t ‘BUY’ anything around here until the Fat Lady Sings. (aka – Until the Game is Over!)

Will Crump says: November 1, 2010 at 11:15 pm
I have no problem with using the UAH version 5.3 temperature records which indicate warming of .138 degress centigrade per decade.

And I have no problem with a 1.38 degree increase in 100 years. And the survival of humans and the vast majority of other species will be unaffected by a 1.38 degree rise in 100 years. I do have a problem attributing that increase to CO2.

Don’t you know that the hydrological cycle is going to accelerate! (Despite no reasonable definition of the velocity (ie, first derivative) of the hydrological cycle being offered.) It’ll probably run of the rails trying to negotiate a curve.

Then, climate change is going to accelerate, and in only a few decades we will see temperature swings of the order of 20C in parts of the world. We must all panic.

Sorry about the labels. While the items in the arcticle by Joe D’Aleo are interesting, a claim that all of the observed change in arctic ice extent is due to “natural variability” with no impact from increasing CO2 levels is not supportable. Some of the claims made in the article with respect to TSI do not match current data.

I ask that you apply the same standards in testing the claims of Joe D’Aleo as you would in testing IPCC claims.

The use of the PDO in the manner claimed in the article does not appear to be supportable. See:

An anlysis of the impact of increases in the radiative forcing from CO2 on the described processes is also missing from the article, although that could be foregiven as a recent study indicates the impact is an open issue:

It is not clear if your statement only relates to the current state of CO2 warming or if it includes all future states. Are you advocating that we do everything we can to increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations?

The view that CO2 is a net negative was endorsed by the IPCC and has been supported by an impressive list of scientific bodies of national or international standing, that have issued formal statements of opinion, that concur with the IPCC view. See:

there is a sufficient body of scientists and peer reviewed studies that indicate we have a problem. While not a definitive answer to this issue, I note that Bjørn Lomborg has changed his view on the need for action, (although I suspect he may be doing this out of economic self-interest and I have not examined the proposal that he has endorsed, but I doubt it would destroy the western economy given the source of the endorsement.)

Doing nothing is not the answer. Doing something which results in the ” demolishing the economies of the western world” is also not the answer. (Please cite a reference to the particular item you are referring to that will demolish the economy.) There are less extreme measures that could be taken to mitigate or diminish negative aspects of human influences on climate and the environment. It is not practical to eliminate all negative aspects of human influences. The selection of mitigation measures will involve a balancing of benefits derived and costs avoided with the costs incurred to carry out the mitigation.

Don’t you know that the hydrological cycle is going to accelerate! (Despite no reasonable definition of the velocity (ie, first derivative) of the hydrological cycle being offered.) It’ll probably run of the rails trying to negotiate a curve.

Then, climate change is going to accelerate, and in only a few decades we will see temperature swings of the order of 20C in parts of the world. We must all panic.

Is there a real scientist in the house?
_____

The hydrological cycle always accelerates with increasing CO2. It has for millions of years and seems to be the way the earth naturally balances excess CO2 in the atmosphere. During the periods of higher CO2 and an accelerated hydrological cycle, more rock is weathered, which takes more CO2 out of the atmosphere, placing it into the oceans. The atmosphere CO2 levels then fall, the global temps cool, the hydrological cycle slows, and the whole things starts again.

The only issue is, this natural CO2 balancing act happens over hudreds of thousands and even millions of years (which is still a blink of an eye in geological terms). Rarely in the record to we see a 40% increase in CO2 in just a few hundred years (virtually instantly). The main question of course is: How will the earth respond to this human created virtual CO2 volcano?

“The arctic temperatures and arctic ice extent varies in a very predictable 60-70 year cycle that relates to ocean cycles which are likely driven by solar changes.”, which he has stated before too, and never any supporting information. I can’t see it in the various graphs here:http://www.socc.ca/cms/en/socc/seaIce/pastSeaIce.aspx

Of course it does as with any forcing limited to the air which tries to take the surface air temperature above the sea surface temperature.

It is that very acceleration that removes the temperature effect of any forcing limited to the air such as that from extra downward IR from more CO2 by locking it up as latent heat of evaporation until it is transported away upward where it is released as the latent heat of condensation and accelerated out to space by outward radiation from a higher level.

The sign of an acceleration of the hydrological cycle is a latitudinal shift in the air circulation systems. The shift required to deal with CO2 effects is so small as against natural solar and oceanic variations that it is miniscule and unmeasurable.

I don’t personally contend that human produced CO2 has no effect, but the concentration on this one item in disregard of other causes, including other possible human factors is one of the reasons I’m skeptical. And like others, the only reason I can see to focus on this one item is to concentrate power and control. This one issue forces the EPA to list CO2 as a pollutant (don’t even start on acidification of oceans), exclusion of all energy sources except solar, hydro and wind and to start a global taxation system called cap and trade.

I believe that climatology is too young as a science to be making the leaps of faith on limited data that are in current use.

So you believe the GISS temperatures are suspect. Are the UAH version 5.3 temperatures suspect?

What is the source of the temperature data base that was used in the original Dr. Soon paper on TSI?

Have you reviewed the criticism leveled at the Soon and Robinson paper on TSI “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon, which was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (strange place to put a peer reviewed study on climate) in 2007 ?

What temperature data base is Dr. Soon using currently and is it a global base? Do you have any criticism for this temperature data base?

Do changes in TSI match changes in the UAH version 5.3 temperature data since 2000?

While it is possible to make graphs that appear to match if you carefully choose the overlapping scales for TSI and global temperature, does the study show that the actual change in radiative forcing from TSI corresponded to the observed change in temperature (this is an amount question, not a direction question)?

Doesn’t the model for TSI induced warming predict warming of all layers of the atmosphere and more warming during the day?
This does not match the observed cooling of the upper atmosphere and greater warming at night.

Do the TSI and global temperature studies have adjustments for clouds?

“The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover”

Please see the many studies cited at the link below which support the following:

“In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions. ”

“This conclusion is confirmed by many studies finding that while the sun contributed to warming in the early 20th Century, it has had little contribution (most likely negative) in the last few decades.”

I do not contend that CO2 can “explain it all” for all periods and all temperature changes (which it can not). My position is that CO2 forcing is one of many components, including TSI, clouds, aerosols, ocean currents and others, that affect global temperatures. The relationships of the different factors are complex, but that does not mean CO2 is a nonfactor.

If you can provide an analysis that uses all the factors that can affect global temperature in a with and without fashion, for changes in CO2 radiative forcing from increases in CO2, that shows no impact for CO2, then perhaps we need to go back to the physicists who claim the CO2 is a greenhouse gas and find out why they are wrong.

Studies which attempt to show that TSI or clouds or CO2 alone are the only drivers of global temperature will fail given a long enough observation period as climate is more complex than any one factor.

Can someone describe the processing performed on TSI?
Upon a quick glance, it looks like some kind of smoothing and a rather substantial negative lag. A link to the data will suffice if folks don’t have time to explain. Thank you.